In search of The Shire Tolkien and the Counties of England David Bratman

his paper was originally de­ that’s hard to capture by an ernment in the U.K. On current T livered to an American audi­ American eye, for which ‘Shire’ maps of Britain, you will find ence, (Mythcon 27, 1996) so it is an exotic foreign word. The lying in the west middle part of began with the observation that closest American equivalents England a county labeled Here­ the counties into which the states might be the Smaliville and ford and Worcester. This un­ of the U.S. are divided are mostly Metropolis of Superman. gainly name is the legacy of the squarish-shaped arbitrary territo­ Metropolis is not a fictitious County Reorganization Act of ries of little antiquity and no par­ name for New York, as in a ro­ 1973, which for administrative ticular emotional interest, al­ man a clef, as much as it is the convenience wrought great though William Faulkner did his essence of American city, in change on the map, wiping out best to add literary resonance to which New York is merely the some of the smaller old counties, his imaginary Yoknapatawpha principal element. Similarly, ‘The creating new counties in urban County in Mississippi. But the Shire’ is probably intended to re­ areas that had inconveniently idea of dividing a state into ad­ mind the English reader of any been divided (such as the West ministrative units of that size and shire, perhaps even one’s own. Midlands county contructed calling them ‘counties’ was Although appearing first in The around Birmingham), and tinker­ brought by the British colonists Lord o f the Rings, as a generic ing with the boundaries in some from England, which historically name it’s more typical of The other places.A A closer look at was divided into 40 counties of Hobbit, where Bilbo lives in The the map will locate the towns of irregular shape, profound antiq­ Hill by The Water, and visits The Hereford and Worcester, the uity, and great interest. Carrock and The Mountain, than burgs around which the shires The word county was brought by it is of the more developed names were originally constructed in the Normans from France, where of the later book. pre-Norman times; and as the one a conte was the feudal domain of Tolkien identified himself with is in the west part of the new a conte or count. The divisions of his mother’s family, the county and the other in the east, England to which it was applied Suffields, which originated you may fairly and accurately were far older than the Normans, around the town of Evesham in conclude that the old Worcester­ however. They had a variety of Worcestershire, and once wrote1 shire was the eastern half of the origins. A few, such as Kent and that ‘any comer of that county new county. Maps predating the Sussex (originally ‘[the kingdom (however fair or squalid) is in an 1973 Act show the border be­ of the] South Saxons’) dated indefinable way “home” to me, as tween Worcestershire and Here­ from earliest Anglo-Saxon times no other part of the world is.’ fordshire running along the when they were separate king­ Such identification with a partic­ Malvern Hills, just west of Great doms. Most, however, began as ular county of origin is common Malvern, and from there heading divisions of larger kingdoms, and in England, in much the same roughly northwest towards Tcn- the Anglo-Saxon term for such way as Americans often identify bury Wells, the town in the far­ divisions was scir, in later En­ themselves with a particular state, thest fair corner of Worcester­ glish shire, a word which has and was even commoner in ear­ shire. A close comparison of the immediate resonance for readers lier times when people moved old and new maps will show that of Tolkien. (Tolkien, of course, less and were closer to the land. the urban county of West Mid­ intended the resonance to be the It is therefore of great interest to lands took, along with larger other way around.) Tolkienists to know exactly chunks of Warwickshire and Because shires are so ubiquitous where Worcestershire lies. Staffordshire, a small piece of in England, for Tolkien to call his This is not as easy as it may Worcestershire, including the in­ hobbits’ territory ‘The Shire' seem, though, unless one is famil­ dustrial towns of Stourbridge, gives it a kind of generic quality iar with the history of local gov­ Flalesowen, Oldbury, and Dud-

A. Subsequent further reorganizations have dismantled some o f the unpopular new urban counties, but at this writ­ ing the West Midlands county is still intact.

5 Mallorn XXXVII BOUNDARIES PRE-1844 (approx)

6 Tolkien and the Counties of England ley. In Tolkien’s opinion this was shire ealdorman Eadric Streona, country cottage now just over the undoubtably the more squalid of whom it was said that he ‘tore county line, was deep into the corner. up shires as if they were paper’, county. Only after they moved to So far so good. But the Act of annexed all of Winchcombeshire the Edgbaston district of Birm­ 1973 was far from the first time and as many pieces of land be­ ingham in 1902 did they leave the boundaries of Worcestershire longing to Worcestershire as he Worcestershire and enter War­ had been tinkered with. When the could get title to.2 wickshire.1315 * shires were new, in fact, their As with any ambitious property How, then, have scholars gained boundaries were quite fluid. acquisition project, the result of the false impression that Sarehole Each shire in Anglo-Saxon times this and similar activities was that was in Warwickshire? Because in was the joint domain of two offi­ by the time the Normans fixed the the 19th century the boundaries cers, the ealdorman and shire- county lines in the form they re­ started to move again. Over the reeve or sheriff (very roughly the tained for some 800 years the centuries between the Normans equivalent of Tolkien's Thain and boundaries of the Mercian shires and the Victorians, the county Mayor, respectively), who were a patchwork quilt, and borders had remained essentially presided at a judicial assembly Worcestershire was one of the unchanged, and thus the counties’ called the Shire-moot (a term also worst, with boundaries weaving antiquity was bolstered by their used by Tolkien), moot being an erratically, and nearly a dozen stability. With the Counties old word for any public meeting detached pieces of itself floating (Detached Parts) Act of 1844, the (hence also entmoot, a meeting of around, especially in the south­ British government began to Ents). The first shires were in the east around Evesham. For in­ undo some of the administrative kingdom of Wessex, in the south­ stance, the town of Shipston-on- damage of the long-dead ealder- west of England, and after Wes­ Stour, now in Warwickshire, was men, eliminating enclaves and sex annexed Mercia, the west part of a large enclave of Worces­ straightening the boundaries in middle kingdom, shires were es­ tershire ten miles away from the other places.7 This process con­ tablished there also in the early main body of the county, and tinued in later years. Urban ex­ tenth century. The old Mercian other villages now in Gloucester­ pansion and the growth of city division of Hwicce (originally a shire formed their own tiny en­ government began to play a role. minor kingdom itself) was the claves (too small to appear on the Over the years the British govern­ basis for all or most of three attached small-scale map). The ment established what were shires set up around the burgs of situation in the northeast, near called corporate counties or Worcester, Winchcombe. and Birmingham, was quite as com­ county boroughs in a number of Gloucester, and part of a fourth plex.3 Most importantly for the the larger cities. For administra­ based on Warwick. Originally the student of Tolkien, the entire tive purposes these were entirely Mercian shires were entirely arti­ southern half of what is now the separate from the counties from ficial and arbitrary creations, city of Birmingham was part of which they had been taken, but bearing no necessary relation to Worcestershire. So Sarehole, for census purposes and on small- older tribal boundaries (thus King’s Heath. Moseley, and all scale maps they remained part of Warwickshire was part in Hwicce the adjacent suburb and country­ what was called the geographical and part out of it), and were cre­ side in which Tolkien grew up county. If the city expanded ated by cutting up swathes of between 1895 and 1902, and across county lines, it took its territory of fairly even taxable which so richly fed his imagina­ original county designation with value and grouping them around tion, were in his beloved Worces­ it.3 This is what happened in defensible burgs. However, this tershire, not in Warwickshire as Birmingham, a corporate county simple pattern did not remain erroneously reported in many taken from Warwickshire. In simple for long. Anglo-Saxon books on Tolkien (e.g. Carpen­ 1911, the year that Tolkien went politicians were no less self- ter4, Pearce5, Rosebury6). Rednal, to Oxford University and left aggrandizing than modem ones. where the Tolkiens spent the Birmingham for good, the city The eleventh century Gloucester­ blissful summer of 1904 in a annexed over 30 square miles of

13. For the satisfaction o f curious local residents - the exact original boundary between Warwickshire and Worces­ tershire in central Birmingham, from west to east, ran along the Bourn Brook just south o f Birmingham University and the new site o f King Edward's School, then along Highgate Street. Highgate Road, and Watford Road before passing down Spark Brook to the River Cole as far as Gressel Lane.

7 Mallorn XXXVII its Worcestershire suburbs, plac­ with annoyance at the suggestion area was roughly the territory of ing them nominally within the that his years teaching at Leeds, the West Midland dialect of Mid­ geographical county of Warwick­ in the northern county of York­ dle English that became Tolkien's shire, and then into the West Mid­ shire, were some kind of expedi­ special province as a philologist. lands urban county when it was tion into a foreign land12. But He expressed the connection be­ created in 1973." The city had some parts of England were more tween his scholarly and personal good reason to take this step. home to him than others. At a interests very clearly: T am a Over twenty years later, on a visit scale intermediate between the West-midlander by blood (and home, Tolkien bemoaned the dis­ county and the country, the area took to early west-midland Mid­ appearance of his ‘beloved lanes he identified with was the West dle English as a known tongue as of childhood ... in the midst of a Midlands, a region not to be con­ soon as I set eyes on it)’.14 The sea of new red-brick’8, but the fused with the new urban county most important text in this dialect dismal suburbanization of the dis­ of the same name in its midst. is the Ancrene Wisse, a book of trict had begun much earlier. The This is the part of England essen­ instruction for a group of an­ Worcestershire suburbs tripled in tially coterminous with the chorites or religious hermits, and population from about 45,000 at Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mer- to this work Tolkien devoted a the time of Tolkien's birth in 1892 cia.• E great deal of scholarly attention. to about 140,000 at the time of The boundaries of Mercia His last major philological publi­ the annexation.0 The visitor to changed often during the several cation was a scholarly edition of Sarehole today need exercise less centuries of its existence. At its a text of this work, and perhaps imagination to recall that it was in height in the 8th century Mercia his greatest work in this field (as Worcestershire for a thousand controlled pretty much all of Eng­ opposed to his more famous but years than to picture how bucolic land south of the Humber and more literarily-oriented essays on its now-crowded lanes must have Mersey Rivers; more properly it Beowulf and ‘On Fairy-Stories’) looked merely a hundred years was the 16 or 17 counties be­ was his 1929 article on Ancrene ago. tween those rivers and the Wisse and the homily Hali Despite Tolkien’s enthusiasm for Thames and Avon to the south, Meidhad In this he argued pas­ Worcestershire, the other coun­ and excluding the ones touching sionately that the language pre­ ties of England were hardly alien the North Sea coast to the east served in these works is a rare to him. When he first planned to and one or two around London. instance of a pure dialect un­ create his epic legendarium of At its narrowest, defined by the mixed by copyists’ alterations or Middle-earth, he intended to ded­ victorious kings of Wessex as the errors. He wrote15 of this dialect icate it ‘to England; to my coun­ part of England where Mercian in strikingly poetic terms unusual try’10 not merely to his county. laws applied, it was nine shires: in technical philology: ‘It is not a The coastal scenery of Cornwall Gloucester, Oxford, Hereford, language long relegated to the and Dorset, in the southwest, ap­ Worcester, Warwick, Stafford, “uplands” struggling once more pealed strongly to his visual Shropshire, Cheshire, and for expression in apologetic emu­ imagination". And he bristled (southern) Lancashire13. This lation of its betters or out of com-

C. The exception to this was in London, where a full-fledged new county was created in 1885 in lieu o f extending the borders o f the corporation o f London. The City, as it's called for short, uniquely retains its original tiny Norman-era bounds, and is now little more than the financial district o f London. It's rather as if New York City had retained its original northern border at Wall Street, and ignored the urban expansion that blossomed all around it. Ü. Stephens, p 3 and pi. 2. Some sources, e.g. Reynolds, (1992, p 1) imply that the annexation did not take place until 1931, but this refers to a later annexation o f other areas. E. See Tolkien 1981, p 108. Here he informs his son Christopher that ‘barring the Tolkien (which must long ago have become a pretty thin strand) you are a Mercian or Hwiccian (of Wychwood) on both sides. ’ Hwicce was the subkingdom o f Mercia based on Worcester described above. Wychwood is, o f several place names preserving the word ‘llwicce the one nearest to Oxford, and was probably here cited by Tolkien for consequently being familiar to his family. Commentators have not taken him as meaning that his ancestors originated specifically in Wychwood. It was a forest on the edge o f Hwiccian territory in the Evenlode vale o f northwest Oxfordshire. Several villages there preserve ‘under [i.e. in] Wychwood’ in their names. A remnant o f the forest still stands in the nearby hills. F. Tolkien also had, o f course, a professional interest in Anglo-Saxon or Old English, the ancestor o f Middle En­ glish, and also had a special place in his heart for its West Midlands dialect, which he called Old Mercian (Tolkien 1981, p 65). Shippey notes that the Anglo-Saxon names o f the Rohirrim are in Old Mercian, not in the standard Wessex dialect o f the language (p 112n).

8 Tolkien and the Counties of England passion for the lewd, but rather tirion, was based on the city of to the southwest, Mercia to the one that has never fallen back Warwick, which was particularly north, and the small Saxon king­ into “lewdness”, and has con­ dear to Tolkien as the place of his doms to the east. Only when trived in troublous times to main­ marriage and of his wife’s resi­ Wessex became pre-eminent in tain the air of a gentleman, if a dence during most of their en­ England did the counties in this country gentleman. It has tradi­ gagement. Here was located the area settle down. The boundaries tions and some acquaintance with Cottage of Lost Play to which of Oxfordshire and the surround­ books and the pen, but it is also in Eriol comes and where he is told ing counties were somewhat less close touch with a good living the tales of the Elves. The poem convoluted than those in Mercia: speech - a soil somewhere in ‘Kortirion Among the Trees’ pre­ Oxfordshire had three outlying England.’ serves Tolkien's attempt to ideal­ enclaves, all in Buckinghamshire, Where in England? The ize and etherealize the primary- and contained four enclaves of manuscript Tolkien spoke of, and world place. Tavrobel, another surrounding counties.22 Aside later edited, resides at Corpus place in Tol Eressea where Eriol from eliminating these, virtually Christi College, Cambridge. But lives and which inspired Tolkien no changes were made in the that says nothing of its origins. to verse, is similarly based on area's county boundaries prior to That the dialect showed that it Great Haywood, a village in the Reorganization Act of 1973, came from the West Midlands Staffordshire (like Warwick it is and only one major change in that was reasonably certain.1617 But in in Mercia not far from Birming­ Act: northwestern Berkshire be­ Tolkien’s time its precise origin ham) where Tolkien lived during tween the Thames and the Lam- was unknown. Later scholarship his recuperation from trench bourn Downs (including Faring- has established the place: in fever in 1916-17, while writing don, Abingdon, Wantage, Didcot, Herefordshire, the county re­ much of The Book o f Lost Tales. Wallingford, and the Vale of cently attached to Worcestershire The House of a Hundred Chim­ White Horse) was transferred to by Act of Parliament. E.J. Dob­ neys at Tavrobel was based on a Oxfordshire, as it was directly son18 in The Origins o f Ancrene house where the Tolkiens lodged adjacent to Oxford city and much IVisse has compiled a detailed in 1918, on the Teddesley estate farther from Berkshire's county chain of evidence to connect it about five miles from Great Hay­ town of Reading. with two monastic establish­ wood. Another place in Tol Er­ Tolkien settled happily in Ox­ ments, both now in ruins, in far essea, Taruithorn, is identified ford, and while he is most closely northwestern Herefordshire, near with Oxford but no tales are told associated with the university, a the village of Wigmore. This of it. In one of the inset tales, setting he used to brilliant effect area, then, can be considered the ‘The Tale of Tinuviel’, the key in The Notion Club Papers, he heartland of the dialect of which scene, in which Beren sees also explored the countryside, Tolkien wrote so lovingly.' Tinuviel dancing in a hemlock particularly during his student When Tolkien was writing The glade, was inspired by a walk the days and early years as a profes­ Book o f Lost Tales, he toyed with Tolkiens took to such a glade in sor. (After that he preferred to the idea of making his mythol­ the Humberside region of York­ dwell on his memories, for fear of ogy, the one he was dedicating to shire while he was stationed there finding the charming countryside England, actually a mythology in 1917-18. It is interesting to spoiled by development.)23 24 25 for England, by hypothesizing note that in this romantic period Two of his most colourful fic­ that his elven isle Tol Eressea of Tolkien’s writing he attached tional characters were inspired di­ was itself actually England at a no special importance to Worces­ rectly by Oxford and the sur­ remote period of prehistory. To tershire, basing his mythology on rounding counties. Both were this end he identified certain places meaningful to his romance created in the 1930s, during the places in Tol Eressea with certain rather than to his ancestry. 19 20 2 1 period he was most active in ex­ places in England that were per­ In 1911 Tolkien left Birmingham ploring the countryside. Tom sonally meaningful to him, and to and Worcestershire to go to Ox­ Bombadil, though modelled in an extent let the real places in­ ford, the city with which he is physical appearance after a Dutch spire the fictional ones. Thus the most associated, and where he doll, represented in his personal­ midmost region of Tol Eressea, spent most of the rest of his life. ity and his ties to a specific local­ Alalminore or ‘The Land of During early Anglo-Saxon times ity, ‘the spirit of the (vanishing) Elms’, was based on Warwick­ Oxford was in the midst of a Oxford and Berkshire country­ shire, and its chief town, Kor- debatable land between Wessex side’.26 Tom is as specific about

9 Mallorn XXXVII the borders as his creator was: of some of the old leading fami­ proper, as defined above. In area, ‘Tom’s country ends here: he will lies.’30 The Farthings (‘farthing’ then, the Shire is intended to not pass the borders.’27 The being an old formation meaning evoke an English region rather mock-scholarly foreword to ‘one-fourth’, best known from than a county. Even the four Far­ Farmer Giles o f Ham is coy pre-decimal British coinage) are things are larger than most coun­ about the exact extent of the Little directly equivalent to the Ridings ties. From Hobbiton to Buckland Kingdom, but as the author noted, (elided from ‘thridings’, ie third- is over 50 miles in a straight line. ‘This is a definitely located story ings) of the county of Yorkshire. That's about the distance from ... The places in it are largely Tolkien's folklands seem to bear London to Oxford, or from Ox­ named, or fairly plainly indi­ no administrative relation to the ford to Birmingham or Worcester cated.’28 The definite location is small-scale divisions of the En­ city. Fifty miles west of Worces­ Oxfordshire and Bucking­ glish counties, the medium-sized ter, one has penetrated deep into hamshire. The three towns named hundreds and the often very small Wales (here be dragons). It is in the story, Thame (alias Ham), parishes. However, the term hardly surprising, given these rel­ Worminghall, and Oakley, are all ‘folklands’ does have resonance atively vast distances in a rural on the border of those two coun­ in England, as does the term culture, that hobbits of different ties immediately east of Oxford Buckland: both were technical Farthings are suspicious of each city. The Little Kingdom was evi­ terms in land ownership and ad­ other's habits and customs. dently smaller than a modem ministration, and the latter also They're a queer breed in Buck- county, as the Foreword notes occurs as a placename31. The con­ land, agree Gaffer Gamgee and that its northern edge was Ot- cept of folklands also appears in his cronies. Folk are queer up in moor, only six miles northeast of county names, as the kingdom of Hobbiton, replies Farmer Mag­ Oxford, but under Giles's son ‘an East Anglia was divided into two got34. outpost against the Middle King­ counties, those of the North Folk Administratively, however, the dom [i.e. Mercia] was maintained and South Folk, or Norfolk and Shire evokes one county, not a at Farthingho’, considerably fur­ Suffolk as they are spelled today. region. There is a single Mayor ther north in southwestern The most striking difference be­ (who is also First Shiriff), and a Northamptonshire. And the tween the hobbits’ Shire and an single Thain. Tolkien’s phras­ Standing Stones at which Garm English shire is that the former is ing35, ‘The Hobbits named it the first encountered the dragon are very much larger. ‘Forty leagues Shire, as the region of the author­ the Rollright Stones equally far to it stretched from the Far Downs ity of their Thain, and a district of the northwest near the corner of to the Brandywine Bridge, and well-ordered business,’ (italics Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, and fifty from the northern moors to mine) suggests that, as in Eng­ Gloucestershire. So as ‘its east­ the marshes in the south.’32 Even land, a Shire is to the hobbits by ern borders are dubious’, we can considering that Tolkien origi­ definition a region with a single take them for the eastern borders nally wrote ‘nearly fifty’,33 that is set of officials. Reference is made of Buckinghamshire, and con­ much larger than any English to the Shire’s supplemental body sider the territory covered by county, even Yorkshire, which of Shiriffs, the Bounders, who Farmer Giles, with the exception measures 90 by 120 miles. A ‘beat the bounds’ of the Shire for of the expedition to seek the smaller county, such as Worces­ security purposes36. This evokes dragon in the Welsh mountains, tershire, measures 30 by 35 miles. an English administrative custom as being the two counties named Converting leagues to miles at the of an area even smaller than a by the author.'1 traditional rate of 1 to 3, the Shire county. A ritual ‘beating of the ‘The Shire was divided into four measures 120 by 150 (or nearly bounds’ was of old, before the quarters, the Farthings ... North, 150) miles. Superimpose that on days of the Ordnance Survey, an South, East, and West; and these central England, and one finds annual custom of the parish, a again each into a number of folk- that the Shire covers, almost ex­ constituent region of which each lands, which still bore the names actly, the same territory as Mercia county had dozens or even hun­

G. For accurate maps and discussions o f the locales in this story, see the forthcoming 50th anniversary edition o f Farmer Giles of Ham edited by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, with map by Pauline Baynes; also Shippey (p 88-89), Doughan, and Urrutia; the map and article by Walker are inaccurate and poorly researched. H. Parishes are also evoked in ‘Leaf by Niggle ’, where at the end o f the story the Porter gives the punning name Niggle's Parish to the land where Mr Niggle and Mr Parish dwell.

10 Tolkien and the Counties of England dreds. The purpose of the ritual Tolkien's youth a local Birming­ wickshire, and Oxfordshire. The was not to keep out Outsiders, but ham name for cotton-wool, being counties of Wales are of compar­ to preserve an institutional mem­ derived from a type of wound­ atively recent origin and have lit­ ory of where the boundaries dressing invented by a local sur­ tle resonance for the Welsh. went.11'37 geon named Gamgee40. Perusal Most of them, including Pem­ ‘Tolkien took most of his Shire- of British telephone directories brokeshire, were created in 1536 names from his own near sur­ reveals that some hobbit sur­ as part of a law which eliminated roundings’, writes Shippey,31 and names, notably Boffin and the political entity of Wales and these give a sense of specific lo­ Brockhouse, are particularly imposed the English language on cation within England to the characteristic of humans of the its government. Recent reorgani­ Shire and Bree. Most of these West Midlands. Others, such as zations, beginning in the 1960s, placenames are from near Ox­ Puddifoot, which in the Shire is have begun to undo those Angli­ ford. Bree-hill derives from Brill, an Eastfarthing name41, are found cizing changes. Many of the a hilltop town in Bucking­ mostly in the far south-east of alien counties have been entirely hamshire very close to Oakley England. Tolkien’s sojourn in dismantled or their names re­ and Worminghall of Farmer Leeds also left its mark on the translated back into Welsh. Giles fame. Newbury is in Berk­ Shire, if only by way of contrast. Nor may Pembrokeshire be seen shire, and Nobottle (which means The name Thistlewood (thus in as a Celtic redoubt, as it was the same thing) is in Northamp­ the LotR index, 111:428; appar­ conquered by the Normans by tonshire. Buckland is a common ently incorrectly Thistlewool on 1100, nearly 200 years before the placename throughout England; 1:167), marked by the travelling last native princes were subdued there's a town by that name in the hobbits as a ‘rather odd’ surname in the fastnesses of Snowdonia. section of Berkshire annexed to found among Men of Bree, is in Even today fewer people there Oxfordshire in 1973, very near England primarily a Yorkshire speak Welsh than anywhere else Kingston Bagpuize, a town-name name. Gaukroger, a name highly in western Wales. Tolkien’s use Tolkien once used as a localized in Halifax, near Leeds, of it as a base for Edwin Lowd­ pseudonym. Bag End was the appeared on early drafts of the ham probably derives from its name of Tolkien’s Aunt Jane’s Shire-hobbit family trees: per­ situation at the tip of the western­ Worcestershire farm38. And so haps significantly, it was later most peninsula of Wales. The forth. A similar naming proce­ replaced by the southeast- great harbour of Milford Haven dure pervades Smith o f Wootton England name Goodbody.421 makes Pembrokeshire an ideal Major39. One odder and more sin­ The work of Tolkien’s that con­ starting point for an expedition to ister probable name referent: The tains more open references to discover lost or sunken mythical Black Country is both a Common British places than any other is lands. Such countries are com­ Speech name for Mordor and a The Notion Club Papers. But the mon in Celtic mythology: the name for the grimy industrial re­ geographical references are all Irish mythical isles which Bren­ gion which abuts Birmingham to focused dynamically outwards, dan finds in Frankley’s poem44 the west, including the more towards lost Numenor, rather presumably lie somewhere west squalid corners of Worcester­ than ruminatively inwards as in of Galway; Lyonesse is a leg­ shire. This shared name suggests the Shire. Oxford is depicted as a endary sunken land off Cornwall, that Tolkien was, as often rock against which the storms of the south-western tip of England; claimed, thinking of the more the West crash. Edwin Lowdham, and Cantref Gwaelod lies in unlovely scenes of his childhood the Amandil of the story, lived at Cardigan Bay not far north of when he created the realm of an unidentified locale in Pem­ Pembrokeshire. There is surely Sauron. brokeshire, Wales, when not sail­ room for Tolkien to add to their Less study has been given to the ing about incessantly43. Tolkien is number. In any event, Jeremy and localizing effect of hobbit sur­ probably not expressing any in­ the younger Lowdham travel names. The connection of the terest in Pembrokeshire as a geo­ about the entire west coast of families of Gamgee and Cotton is graphic entity here, the way he Britain, hunting for a scent of a joke derived from gamgee, in does for Worcestershire, War­ Numenor, and have their greatest

/. Following Allen Barnett (Davenport, p 337), some have concluded that the hobbits' names, not to mention their shoeless feet, come from Kentucky country folk. But even if it is true that they came to Tolkien in this manner, a pe­ rusal o f Internet telephone directories shows that hobbit surnames are neither characteristic o f nor distinctive to Kentucky.

11 Mallorn XXXVII success at Porlock, in Somerset Frodo is later ridiculed by Pippin Tolkien visited and appreciated near the base of the peninsula of for these melancholy thoughts47, though he never lived near there, which Cornwall forms the tip, on but scenes like this one play an here is the testimony49 of one of the coast facing South Wales.45 important part in establishing in Tolkien’s fellow Inklings, Lord Having explored the English ge­ the reader’s mind the love for the David Cecil. ography of Tolkien's works, we Shire which grounds the book, ‘Very few people respond to a may conclude by saying a little making the journeys into far particular landscape for purely about what home counties meant lands and Frodo’s unresolved aesthetic reasons; pleasure in to him, and to some of his compa­ homecoming the more poignant. its beauty is generally mixed triots, by way of a few quotations. Stanley Baldwin, who was Prime with and intensified by associ­ The scene in The Lord o f the Minister of Great Britain at the ations. Myself I realize that the Rings most evocative of a sensi­ time that Tolkien completed The Cotswolds and the Yorkshire tive feeling for landscape is per­ Hobbit, was like Tolkien a Dales are as beautiful, perhaps haps the following: Worcestershire lad, hailing from even more beautiful, than Bewdley in the northwest of the Dorset. But they do not move For a short way they followed county. Although a fourth- me so deeply. For I have the lane westwards. Then leav­ generation ironworks owner and known Dorset ever since I can ing it they turned left and took a canny, formidable politician, remember and its downs and quietly to the fields again. They Baldwin liked to picture himself woods, its chalky sea-coast and went in single file along as a simple country squire, and dark stretches of heathland, its hedgerows and the borders o f always maintained a spiritual beech groves and clumps of coppices, and night fell dark connection with his home county immemorial yew trees are in­ about them. ... After some time and region. His biographer48 put extricably intertwined with they crossed the Water, west of it like this: memories of childhood, of Hobbiton, by a narrow plank- ‘[Baldwin’s] feeling for the youth, of middle age; and satu­ bridge. The stream was there triangle bounded by the Black rated with the sentiment awo­ no more than a winding black Country, the Cotswolds and ken in me by these memories. ribbon, bordered with leaning the Welsh hills was intense. Fie Now in old age the sight of alder-trees. A mile or two fur­ loved wide landscape and them stirs me as no other land­ ther south they hastily crossed changing light, and it is very scape does. It is lucky for me the great road from the good country for that. ... His that Dorset has produced Brandywine Bridge; they were agricultural knowledge was Thomas Flardy who, since he is now in the Tookland and bend­ very limited. He could not one of the greatest of authors ing south-eastwards they made have milked a cow, and he that ever lived, does it justice’. for the Green Hill Country. As poked pigs much more often in they began to climb its first cartoons than in the farmyard. Then follow several long quotes slopes they looked back and But he was a genuine West from Hardy's novels which pre­ saw the lamps in Hobbiton far Worcestershire man, and the sent pictorial images of Dorset. off twinkling in the gentle val­ City of Worcester with its tall Cecil’s key point is that familiar­ ley o f the Water. Soon it disap­ cathedral tower, its county ity and association count for more peared in the folds o f the dark­ cricket ground beside the in the eyes of a lover of landscape ened land, and was followed steep-banked Severn, and its than does sheer beauty. What he by Bywater beside its grey chocolate and cream Great says about Dorset applies even pool. When the light o f the last Western trains arriving at more to Worcestershire. Though farm was far behind, peeping Shrub Hill Station from nestled between two attractive among the trees, Frodo turned Paddington, was the centre of ranges of hills, the Malverns and and waved a hand in farewell. some substantial part of his the Cotswolds, most of Worces­ 7 wonder if I shall ever look life.’ tershire is flat and agricultural. down into that valley again, ’ For a last moving tribute to an The Vale of Evesham, the native he said quietly.46 English county, one which area of the Suffields, is a particu-

J. It was here that Tolkien's brother Hilary kept his plum orchard, and there is an oblique tribute to the region's agricultural produce in Roverandom: ‘They say [Artaxerxes] is a nimble plum-gatherer for an old man ... and ex­ tremely fond o f cider. But that’s neither here nor there ’ (p 14).

12 Tolkien and the Counties of England larly rich fruit and vegetable dis­ Worcestershire ‘in an indefinable ban county) for his ancestry and trict.'1 There is little about the way’ “home” to him51. childhood, and Oxfordshire region to attract a non-native eye. So in looking for a specific loca­ flanked by Berkshire and Buck­ But the point is that Tolkien’s eye tion for Tolkien, a local area of inghamshire for his adulthood. was a native one, not just by England that was particularly This is an area roughly equivalent upbringing but by heredity. ‘To special and meaningful for him, to, though not identical to, Mer­ my mind,’ he wrote, ‘being what we can fix definitely on seven cia. He visited and even lived in it is ... it is the things of racial and adjoining counties in the West other parts of Britain, and the linguistic significance that attract Midlands of England: Worcester­ whole country was his native me and stick in my memory.’50 It shire, flanked by Herefordshire, land, but these counties were the is this combination of ‘tastes, tal­ Staffordshire and Warwickshire ones to which his life’s work was ents, and upbringing’ that made (including the West Midlands ur­ devoted.

References

I, 10,12,14,26,28,29,40,50,51. Tolkien, J.R.R. 1981. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p 54, p 144, pp 305-6, p 213, p 26, p 130, p 130-1, p 245, p 108, p 54 2,13. Hill, David. 1981. An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p 78 and 97; p 98 3,22. Moule, Thomas. 1990. The County Maps of Old England. London: Studio Editions, p 121, p 89 4,8,17,21,24,38. Carpenter, Humphrey. 1977. Tolkien: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, p 21, pp 124-5, p 134, p 97, p 124, p 106 5. Pearce, Joseph. 1998. Tolkien: Man and Myth. London: HarperCollins. p i 7 6. Rosebury, Brian. 1992. Tolkien: A Critical Assessment. Basingstoke: Macmillan./? 121 7. Poole, Reginald Lane, ed. 1902. Historical Atlas of Modem Europe. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pi 22-24 9. Stephens, W.B., ed. 1964. A History of the County of Warwick, v. 7. London: Oxford University Press, p 16 II, 20,23. Hammond, Wayne G., and Scull, Christina. 1995. J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, pp 24-30, p 26, p 17 15,16. Tolkien, J.R.R. 1929. ‘Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meidhad’. Essays and Studies, vol. 14. p 106, p 105 18. Dobson, E.J. 1976. The Origins of Ancrene Wisse. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 19. Tolkien, J.R.R. 1983-1984. The Book of Lost Tales 2 v. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, v.l p 25-43, v.2 p 291-2 25,39. Lewis, Alex. 1991. ‘The Lost Heart of the Little Kingdom’. In Leaves from the Tree: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Shorter Fiction. London: The Tolkien Society, pp 33-44, p 42 27,30,32,34,35,36,41,46,47. Tolkien, J.R.R. 1966. The Lord of the Rings. 2nd ed. 3 v. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1:159, 1:14, 1:18, 1:30 and 104, 1:14, 1:19,1:101, 1:80, 1:113 28. Tolkien, J.R.R. 1949. Farmer Giles of Ham. London: Allen and Unwin, p 8 31. Shippey, T.A. 1992. The Road to Middle-earth. [Rev. ed.] London: Grafton./? 93 33. Hammond, Wayne G. 1993. J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography. Winchester: St Paul's Bibliographies, p 122 37. Winchester, Angus. 1990. Discovering Parish Boundaries. Princes Risborough: Shire Publications./?/? 36- 37 42. Tolkien, J.R.R. 1996. The Peoples of Middle-earth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin./?/? 88 and 96-97 43,44,45. Tolkien, J.R.R. 1992. The Notion Club Papers. In Sauron Defeated, pp 143-327. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, p 234, pp 261-4, pp 268-73 48. Jenkins, Roy. 1995. Baldwin. London: Papermac. pp 33-34 49. Cecil, David. 1975. Library Looking-Glass: A Personal Anthology. New York: Harper & Row. p 59

References appearing only in footnotes Reynolds, Patricia. 1992. Tolkien's Birmingham. Milton Keynes: Forsaken Inn Press, p 1 Doughan, David. 1984. Letter, Mythlore 40, Autumn, pp 48-49 Urrutia, Benjamin. 1984. ‘Regarding the Map of the Little Kingdom’, Mythlore 38, Spring,/? 47 Walker, R.C. 1984. ‘The Little Kingdom: Some Considerations and a Map’, Mythlore 37, Winter,/? 47-48

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